MOVIES . . . FIRST KNIGHT

Richard Gere's Lancelot is a cheeky existentialist, Sean Connery's King Arthur is a temporizing leader for the Clinton era, and Julia Ormond's Guinevere is all up-to-date feminist spunk. The Camelot of Jerry Zucker's "First Knight," says TIME's Richard Schickel, is more a modern gated community than a myth-enshrouded, 6th century realm. And the great romance that was played out there -- legend's ur-Triangle -- comes across as not much more consequential than suburban adultery: "One can easily imagine Guinevere and Lancelot as Gwen and Lance, furtively smooching on the 18th tee during a country-club dance, or stealing glances across a crowded PTA meeting." Still, Schickel admits, "the scenery is always pretty" and "every era has the right to reinvent the Arthurian legend according to its lights."